of most of its leaders. That restraint, how-
ever, like the talk of coöperation, seems to
have evaporated with the first taste of
power. Sometimes an organization is
nonviolent on principle, and sometimes it
is nonviolent simply because it finds itself
in a position of weakness.
For many Egyptians, it s been a de-
pressing month. The military seems to
be aligned with Morsi, at least for the
moment, and the country lacks a strong
and coherent political alternative to the
Brotherhood. Nevertheless, there are
some reasons for optimism. The public
response has been impressive, with tens
of thousands of peaceful protesters sur-
rounding the palace on many nights.
These crowds are largely middle class,
but they comprise people from all walks
of life, including many who identify
themselves as former supporters of
Morsi. There are more women than
usual. And expectations have changed
since the beginning of the revolution. For
almost two years, the media have oper-
ated with a freedom that never existed
under Mubarak, and Egypt has held es-
sentially fair elections for both parliament
and the Presidency. Such progress re-
mains fragile, but at least certain de-
mands are being established.
Meanwhile, the Brotherhood has
failed to evolve in the wake of the revo-
lution. Traditionally, the organization s
strengths have been local religious
training and charity work, which have
made it effective at mobilizing grassroots
support for elections. But for decades it
was banned from full participation in
Egypt s government, so it has never
been tested in the more subtle and com-
plicated aspects of national politics. The
leadership is dominated by people from
technical fields: of the eighteen mem-
bers of the Brotherhood s Guidance Bu-
reau, fifteen are doctors, engineers, or
scientists. Their careers may not have
taught them the arts of negotiation and
compromise, and Morsi, an engineer by
training, has shown no real flexibility in
response to the unfolding crisis. Eight
of his advisers and aides have resigned
in the past three weeks. From the out-
side, it s hard to distinguish between
calculation and incompetence. On Sun-
day evening, the government suddenly
announced major tax increases for a
wide variety of goods, including gaso-
line, electricity, cooking oil, cigarettes,
and alcohol---hardly a savvy move in a
country with a ravaged economy and an
ongoing political crisis. Later that night,
after the decree had inspired a mad rush
on Cairo liquor stores, Morsi cancelled
it with a message posted on his Face-
book page at 2:13 A.M.
The Brotherhood has "a huge ability
to withstand negotiations that never
reach anything," Gaber Gad Nassar, one
of the most prominent members who
quit the constituent assembly, said last
week. Nassar is a professor of constitu-
tional law at Cairo University, and his
analysis could be seen as either deeply
pessimistic or perversely optimistic, de-
pending on the tone of your inshallah.
"They are extremely keen to take over
power and use it," he said. "However, the
biggest problem they face is the lack of
talent qualified to do that." Critics have
always made this point---that the worst
thing that could happen to the Brother-
hood might be a rise to power, because
then their weaknesses would be exposed.
But this is small consolation in Cairo.
The world is full of bad regimes that sur-
vive just because they hurt others more
than they hurt themselves.
---Peter Hessler
1
THE PICTURES
HIZZONER
Every weekday, Edward Irving Koch,
the unshrinking, garrulous, and eas-
ily mimicked but otherwise sui-generis
hundred-and-fifth mayor of New York
City, rises at 6 A.M. and gets busy doing
what he does best---being Ed Koch. More
than two decades since leaving office, he
remains confident of the consistent note-
worthiness of his public utterances. Last
week, he made news just by shaking off a
touch of pneumonia and showing up for
his eighty-eighth-birthday party, at Gra-
cie Mansion. On a typical morning, he ar-
rives at his desk, in Rockefeller Center, by
eight-fifteen (or half an hour earlier, if he
hasn t stopped at the gym along the way).
Until he leaves, at four-thirty, he spends
most of his time writing: miscellaneous
articles, letters, e-mails, and movie re-
views that he publishes online or delivers
on-camera, for Shalom TV. "I like to
think that I m one of the few people in
public life who write their own material.
I write every word," he said recently. "And
I really enjoy writing---especially my po-
litical commentary."
Hizzoner s weekly political commen-
taries, which he composes on Sundays,
while he s still in bed, turn up the follow-
ing day on the Huffington Post and
Newsmax. Everything he publishes gets
distributed to an e-mail list of six thou-
sand recipients, and he reads and responds
to everything in his in-box. His routines
include a weekly television appearance
on NY1 with the impeccably reputable
Alfonse D Amato and Eliot Spitzer; a
"I m not from here."